The Statutes of Westminster

The sequence of statutes Edward I issued at Westminster between 1275 and 1290, among the most consequential legislation of his reign. The First Statute of Westminster (1275) restated and amended large areas of the common law, from free elections to the treatment of prisoners. The Second Statute of Westminster (1285) is chiefly remembered for its clause De Donis Conditionalibus, which let landowners create an entailed estate descending only to specified heirs, shaping English land law for centuries. The Third Statute of Westminster (1290), commonly called Quia Emptores from its opening words, prohibited subinfeudation and let a tenant sell land outright to be held directly of the same lord, which over time helped dissolve the layered feudal tenures the Norman settlement had created. Conservative and definitory in intent rather than original, and owing much to Edward's chancellor Robert Burnell, the statutes were meant to strengthen royal government and correct known deficiencies in the law; their land legislation nonetheless helped undermine the feudal structure they were meant to secure. Following the standing HistoryAtlas convention for a phased legislative or military program (the Punic Wars, the World Wars, the Crusades), the three statutes are treated as one event, named separately here in prose rather than minted as distinct entities.